


Back to School

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [53]
Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton, Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia decides to attend a school reunion, but the weekend turns out slightly more eventful than she expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Claudia’s car swept down the narrow Cornish lanes with the warm rays of the late afternoon sun glinting brightly off the silver paintwork of her Mazda MX-5. The traffic out of London had been light, but it had still been a long drive and she was looking forward to reaching her destination. She rounded a corner – a very familiar corner – and ahead saw a large square building, constructed out of grey stone, each corner set with a rounded, battlement-topped tower. The hill was actually a cliff overlooking the sea and the building was the boarding school where Claudia had spent six years of her life between the ages of 12 and 18.

When the letter had arrived announcing a school reunion for Claudia’s year, she’d almost consigned it straight to the bin – she’d enjoyed her time at school, but hadn’t kept up with any of her classmates, and get-togethers weren’t really her thing. Set against that was the fact that she hadn’t taken a break from the Anomaly project for longer than she cared to remember, and the idea of a weekend in Cornwall had been strangely attractive. Acting quickly, before she changed her mind, she’d emailed her acceptance to the headmistress’s secretary, asking the woman, whose name she didn’t recognise, to pass her best wishes to Miss Grayling.

Three months later she still hadn’t taken a break, in spite of all the promises she’d made to herself. Her electronic diary had dutifully provided a reminder at the beginning of the week and, much to her surprise, Lester hadn’t raised any objection to signing her holiday request form. In contrast, Cutter had seemed surprised that she had a life outside of the project and Abby had promptly quizzed her about life at a girls’ boarding school.

She’d gone into work for an hour on the Friday morning to check her email and let the early morning traffic subside, but at 10am, Lorraine had appeared with two packets of sandwiches for the journey, Ryan, with his customary, slightly formal politeness, had wished her a good weekend, Lyle had made a mildly salacious comment with the sort of grin that made it impossible to take offence, Connor had waved her off looking more excited for her than she actually felt and had told her cheerfully not to worry about them. Stephen, in his thoughtful but undemonstrative way, had stocked her car with two bottles of frozen water, which had provided blissfully cool drinks throughout the journey.

Claudia Brown was taking a weekend off, and she was determined to enjoy herself.

* * * * *

The sunlight sparkled on the myriad windows set amidst the green of the creeper-clad stone and Malory Towers looked as much like a castle as Claudia remembered. Even after an absence of 12 years she still felt a flutter of excitement at the sight of the place that had been home to her for much of each year whilst her parents, both diplomats, had been abroad.

There were already several cars in the car park and she amused herself for a moment wondering if she could match the cars to the owners. The battered Range Rover with a dented rear door that had never seen the inside of a car wash in its life would belong to Bill Robinson, she had no doubt about that. Claudia pulled in next to a sensible Volvo that seemed a likely bet for Sally Hope’s transport but before she could indulge in any more guesswork, a bright red sports car swept in through the gates – too fast – and came to a halt next to her in a spray of gravel.

A dark-haired woman, dressed casually but elegantly, stepped out, saw Claudia and promptly let out a delighted shriek. “Claudia Brown! You haven’t changed a bit!”

Claudia smiled, thinking the same certainly couldn’t have been said for the other woman. Alicia Johns had never been one for clothes or make-up when they’d been at school, although a taste for fast, expensive cars certainly came as no surprise. Claudia glanced at the prancing horse logo and decided the object of her unrequited teenage crush must have done pretty well in life to be able to afford a Ferrari.

Alicia pulled her into a hug, planted a firm kiss on both cheeks and grinned. “So, what are you doing with yourself these days?”

“Home Office,” Claudia said with a smile. “Very boring, I’m afraid. What about you?” she added, even though she actually knew the answer to her own question.

“Barrister. Equally boring.” The laughter dancing in Alicia’s sharp brown eyes gave the lie to that statement.

Claudia very much doubted that anything about Alicia Johns could ever have been described as boring. Her friend had started out by reading English at St. Andrews, dropped out after a year to go travelling and then had returned to the UK to read law at Bristol. Claudia, who’d gone to Oxford immediately to study English, only later changing to law as Alicia had done, had to admit to herself that she’d probably never followed an impulse in her life – apart from when it had come to introducing herself to a certain irascible Scot by means of a kiss.

From Bristol, Alicia had gone into a set of chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. She now specialised in construction industry cases and appeared to be doing very well for herself and, as far as Claudia had been able to ascertain, was still unmarried. Claudia hadn’t been able to resist a small amount of cyber-stalking of some of her former school friends during the past week, but the details she’d picked up hadn’t really prepared her for the reality of Alicia Johns in the flesh. She was gorgeous, and made Claudia seem positively dowdy by comparison. For a moment, Claudia was back in the third form again, a mass of raging hormones, perpetually tongue-tied in the other girl’s presence.

With Alicia talking 19 to the dozen, they both grabbed small cases from the back of their cars and made their way up the main steps.

“Potty!” Alicia dropped her case and flung her arms unceremoniously around a tall, grey-haired woman who had been the house-mistress for North Tower, one of the four different houses in the school. Claudia had been a West Tower girl, the same as Alicia’s bosom friend, Betty Hill.

Miss Potts stepped back under the onslaught, her determined mouth breaking into one of her rare smiles. “Alicia Johns! You don’t improve, do you?”

“Mother sends her love,” said Alicia, and Claudia remembered that Alicia’s mother had also spent her schooldays at Malory Towers.

“Claudia,” Miss Potts said warmly, extending her hand, and Claudia felt a warm flush of surprise that the older woman even remembered her name. “It’s lovely to see you again. Eileen Pemberton’s just arrived. You were in West Tower with her, weren’t you? She hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you, Miss Potts” said Claudia, and meant it. She’d always thought of the somewhat stern Miss Potts as being in late middle age, but in fact the woman was probably no older than that now, and when she’d taught Claudia she’d probably been no more than her early thirties, the same age as Claudia was now.

Miss Potts’ eyes twinkled in a very familiar way. “I think it’s high time you both called me Sarah.”

“I didn’t realise you had a first name, Potty!” Alicia exclaimed, ducking nimbly away from the light swat that her former house-mistress aimed at her.

While they were still chatting, another three cars pulled into the driveway and soon the steps were thronged with women laughing, chatting and swopping abbreviated life histories until, with one of her well-remembered looks, Miss Potts shooed them all inside with instructions to pick up a room list and meet again in the courtyard for drinks after they’d all had the opportunity to freshen up.

The school secretary, whose name Claudia hadn’t recognised, but who was greeted by Alicia like another old friend, handed them both a guest list and told them that they’d all been allocated rooms in North Tower.

“That’s Dopey Doris,” Alicia hissed, as they made their way out of the main hall. “In East Tower, two years above us, don’t you remember her?”

Claudia had to confess that she didn’t. She glanced down at the guest list in her hand. “We’re sharing a room,” she exclaimed in surprise. “I thought you’d be in with Betty.”

“Not coming,” said Alicia airily. “One of her brats has gone down with something. She emailed me yesterday and said she’d have to cry off.”

Alicia had never overflowed with what might have been described as the milk of human kindness, and she’d never displayed much sympathy for anyone who didn’t enjoy her own rude good health, although a bad bout of measles just before their mock A Levels had mellowed her slightly. But even so, Claudia’s attempt to enquire in a little more detail into the heath of Betty’s offspring was dismissed with an airy wave of one long-fingered hand.

They were sharing a small guest room high up in North Tower, equipped with two twin beds, a small wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The nearest bathroom was at the end of the corridor. It seemed that the smaller rooms had been allocated on a first come, first served basis, and quite a few of the other attendees would be sharing their old dorm rooms on the floor below.

Her companion bounced up and down on the bed doing a passable impersonation of an excited first-year. Alicia’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Claudia just hoped she wasn’t going to disgrace herself by mooning after the other girl the way she was sure she’d done as a teenager.

After a brief pause for a wash and a change of clothes, they made their way downstairs and out into the Court, a large sunny area surrounded on all sides by the four limbs of the main building. In the middle was a large circle of green grass, sunk below the main courtyard, with stone seats set around the sloping sides. Claudia had fond memories of performing in many plays out there in the summer term. She’d never had Alicia’s talent for entertaining an audience, but her enjoyment of the various plays had led her to read English at Oxford, before a change of heart had taken her to law, although unlike her companion, she hadn’t chosen to practise in that field.

Trestle table had been set up along one wall of the building, and various members of staff were helping to hand around tall, fruit-laden, glasses of Pimms. Claudia took a long, refreshing drink and looked around, wondering how many people she would recognise. From the guest list tucked into her handbag, she knew that there were actually more girls from North Tower here than any other, with West Tower – her own house – being particularly under-represented.

It wasn’t difficult to recognise Darrell Rivers, who’d been Head Girl in Claudia’s final year, and her great friend Sally Hope. Darrell still sported a head of dark, curly hair and a hail-fellow-well-met smile. Sally still wore her hair long, although her single plait was far less severe than the pig-tails she’d worn at school. They both greeted Claudia and Alicia with hugs and a barrage of questions, and Claudia felt herself slipping back into the shadow of the other girls – as she still thought of them – listening, rather than participating. But it had been a long drive, she reminded herself.

The drink was plentiful, so was the buffet supper, and by the time Claudia made her excuses and headed up the winding staircase to the top floor of North Tower she had to admit that she was more than a little tipsy. She’d just had time to brush her teeth and don an overly large teeshirt to sleep in when the door was flung open to admit Alicia. A whirlwind of activity followed for the next ten minutes as Alicia dashed up and down the corridor and finally got ready for bed. Claudia did her best to avert her eyes from the sight of Alicia’s long, tanned limbs and athletic body. Finally, temptation, dressed in a skimpy top and cropped pants, hurled itself under the bedcovers like a puppy into a basket.

“Well, none of them have changed much!” Alicia announced, clearly not in the least bit sleepy, even though it was well after midnight. “Sally Hope is still as dull as ever.”

“You haven’t forgiven her for being made Head of Form in the Second Year,” laughed Claudia, in the darkness.

Alicia chuckled. “You’re probably right. I was a bit of a beast to her, wasn’t I?” A moment later, she reverted to type and added, “Her husband’s a politician. He’s got a mouth like a frog and he’s the most boring man I’ve ever met in my life. I considered pretending I had a chicken bone stuck in my throat just to get away from him, but Dependable Sally would no doubt have known how to perform the bloody Heimlich manoeuvre, so I had to keep smiling and nodding. I still haven’t a clue what he was blathering on about!”

Alicia chatted on, not needing much by way of reply, until Claudia finally drifted off into sleep. A couple of hours later, driven from her bed by the amount of liquid she’d consumed that day, Claudia made her way down the darkened corridor to the bathroom and back. Before settling back into bed she took a moment to stare out of the window, entranced by the full moon presiding over a clear, cloudless sky and the silver shards of light that danced on the tops of the waves.

The rugged coastline was every bit as beautiful as she remembered.


	2. Chapter 2

Claudia smiled as she made her way down the steep, stony path to the huge swimming pool, hollowed out of the rocks beside the sea. White-topped waves crashed on the shore and replenished the water in the pool with every high tide. She’d adored swimming here and it was just as beautiful as she remembered – like everything at Malory Towers. The passing years hadn’t served to diminish her surroundings in any way and, throwing her towel down on the rocks, she prepared to enter the water, half-expecting someone, probably Alicia, to yell that the last one in was a sissy.

One of the girls was poised on the tallest of the diving boards. Sally Hope, Head of Games in their final year, executed a graceful swallow dive, entering the water with barely a splash, before swimming strongly across the pool. Claudia had piled her hair up on top of her head, secured firmly with a large clip, and now entered the water a little more sedately, amused to see that Mary-Lou, the class mouse, although wearing a swimming costume, clearly had no intention of swimming. Some things hadn’t changed, even though Mary-Lou was now a senior nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The water was cold, but delightfully refreshing. The day promised to be hot, even though it was not quite 10 am, and it was obvious that a great many people intended to spend most of the day lounging around by the pool. The coastline was spectacular, with towering cliffs on both sides that provided some excellent walks. If it cooled down later in the day, Claudia might be tempted by a stroll, but for now she was content simply to swim a few laps of the pool and chat to her contemporaries, catching up on 12 years of people’s lives and loves.

“Bill and Clarissa are an item, you know,” said Alicia, doing a lazy backstroke next to Claudia whilst staring up at a cloudless blue sky.

“Good luck to them,” said Claudia, hoping Alicia wouldn’t turn out to have unsavoury views on the subject.

Alicia turned in the water, as supple as a seal, and started to match Claudia stroke for stroke. “Clarissa’s bloody gorgeous! I can quite see why Bill can’t keep her hands off her. Who’d have thought our little Clarissa, with her braces and thick glasses, would have grown from such an ugly duckling into a glorious swan.”

Bill Robinson, as fit and boyish at 32 as she had been in her teens, was standing by the pool, one arm looped casually around her girlfriend’s waist. Clarissa, with eyes as green as one of the Special Forces soldiers who Claudia worked with, had a mass of stunning auburn hair and a slender, toned figure. She ran a riding school with Bill that the two girls had opened immediately after leaving school, and it was clear to anyone who saw them together that the two women were more than just business partners.

“What about you?” asked Claudia, plucking up courage to ask the question that had been on the tip of her tongue all the previous evening. “Is there anyone special in your life?”

Alicia pulled a comical face and laughed. “I have an unholy talent for attracting completely unsuitable men. Mother says it’s a gift. I’m not much better when it comes to women,” she added lightly, as an afterthought.

Claudia’s heart executed a very neat back-flip and she deliberately ducked her face in the cool water of the pool, hoping to avoid a blush. Apart from her schoolgirl crush on Alicia, she’d always categorised herself as staunchly heterosexual, but comments like that last one were doing nothing for her self-composure.

Fortunately, Alicia didn’t appear to notice anything amiss and promptly launched into a long and extremely amusing recitation of her dating disasters, which had culminated in a short engagement to a High Court judge in her chambers. She claimed it had ended when she’d caught him in bed with their Clerk, a married man with three children.

“I wouldn’t have minded, but he’s the most unattractive man on God’s green earth!” she ended, with a light laugh. “Otherwise it might have been hot, but he wore sock-suspenders, for pity’s sake! I didn’t even realise they actually existed! How the hell could the man I was intending to marry go to bed with a man who wears sock-suspenders?” Without waiting for an answer, Alicia dived underwater for a moment and came up shaking the water from her short, chestnut-brown hair. “What about you? Come on, spill the beans. There must be someone in the Home Office worth getting steamed up about!”

This time Claudia really did blush and Alicia crowed in triumph. The splash of someone else diving in provided a momentary distraction, and then she found herself under her friend’s scrutiny again. Alicia always had been a skilled interrogator.

“Male or female?” the other woman demanded.

“Male,” Claudia said, knowing there was going to be no easy way out of this conversation, but the fact that she’d brought it on herself wasn’t much of a consolation.

“Single or married?”

“It’s … complicated,” she said eventually.

“It always is, sweetie.” Alicia sighed theatrically. “His wife doesn’t understand him?”

Claudia laughed, in spite of her embarrassment. “I think it would be fair to say that none of us understand his wife.”

“So apart from encumbered, what’s he like?”

“Scottish,” Claudia said, wondering how the hell to skate around a description of a certain professor without actually mentioning what her job really entailed. “He’s an evolutionary zoologist,” she added, before Alicia had an opportunity to ask.

The other woman let out a piercing whistle that would have earned her a telling-off in their school days. “Well, that’s different! Is he hot?”

Claudia was saved from the need to reply by a yell of, “Iced lemonade!” from Mary-Lou. She swam to the side of the pool and hauled herself out of the water, followed by Alicia. A picnic table loaded with drinks and snacks had been set up, and the women crowded around, behaving like a load of first-formers at a feast. Claudia spread her towel on the rocks and sprawled out, staring out to sea, as she munched happily on an egg and cress sandwich.

Sunlight sparkled on top of the white-crested waves that hammered relentlessly on the jagged rocks. This section of coast was off limits for bathing. A strong rip-tide would sweep any swimmers stupid enough to brave the treacherous waters onto the rocks. Claudia remembered, with a small shudder, the morning that one girl in her year, Amanda Chartelow, had been arrogant enough to believe that she could swim in those waters. She’d ended up being rescued by Alicia’s young cousin, June, and the leg injuries she’d sustained when the current had swept her onto the rocks had put paid to her Olympic prospects.

“She ended up teaching sport here,” Alicia commented, having clearly followed the same train of thought. “June stayed in contact with her. Miss Grayling said Amanda’ll be here later today. I bet she’s as big and hearty as ever.”

Claudia smiled. Malory Towers had certainly had its fair share of sporty types over the years. She’d enjoyed swimming and tennis at school, but had never been too fond of the obligatory lacrosse. Too many bruised knuckles had put her off that type of game for life.

“Dolphins!” called Darrell Rivers, from her perch on top of one of the diving boards, pointing out to sea.

A sleek shape rose out of the water, followed by another, and soon a whole shoal of the creatures were cavorting and diving, putting on one of their characteristic displays as they chased fish and played, untroubled by the treacherous waters. One of the girls had a pair of bird-watching binoculars and soon these were being passed around and photos were being taken on cameras and mobile phones. Claudia pulled her own phone out of her bag, glad she’d bothered to bring it down to the shore, even though the whole area had worse than useless reception, including up at the school itself. She took a couple of snaps, although the creatures were probably too far away to show as anything more than a triangular fin amongst the wave tops.

“Jolly queer face for a dolphin,” commented Belinda Morris, reaching for her ever-present sketchbook.

Claudia took the binoculars Sally was offering to her and focussed them on the playful school, still sporting themselves in the midst of the bay. Belinda was right; they did have faces quite unlike any dolphins that Claudia had ever seen before. Their eyes were considerably larger: big, round, dark orbs set in narrow heads that tapered quickly to a long, thin pointed beak, set with rows of sharp teeth.

Above the noise of the waves pounding against the rocks Claudia heard the chug of an outboard engine. A small boat appeared to be following the school of sea creatures. Someone was standing up in the prow, probably shooting film on their mobile, while a couple of children shouted and laughed.

“They’d better be careful,” Sally Hope said thoughtfully. “It’ll only take one of those things getting too close to have that boat over, then they’ll be in trouble.”

A prickle of unease made its way down Claudia’s spine as she focussed the binoculars on the creatures again. Something about those large eyes and long, narrow noses was starting to ring a very distinct, and rather unpleasant, bell in the back of her mind. She checked her phone again. For a moment, she noticed a flicker of a signal but it was gone again, almost as quickly as it had appeared.

“Get lost!” came a cry from Clarissa Carter.

Claudia turned around in time to see Bill lob a rock at a large and ugly-looking bird that had just succeeded in snatching a salmon sandwich off the plate that Clarissa had left unattended while she’d been watching the … dolphins, although Claudia was now almost sure that whatever the creatures were, they certainly weren’t dolphins.

“Bloody hell,” exclaimed Alicia. “That’s the ugliest puffin I’ve ever seen!”

The bird, with Clarissa’s sandwich held firmly in a set of pointed teeth set in an enormous beak, part of a skull that seemed to be little more than thin, leathery skin stretched too tight over prominent bones, was waddling away in triumph.

A harsh cry from above signalled the arrival of another bird. Like its companion, this one was about a metre long, with parchment-like wings in a mottled brown colour, seemingly devoid of feathers. It promptly launched an attack on the other one and succeeding in grabbing the sandwich and then flying off to a perch on the cliff overlooking the pool.

Belinda’s attention was drawn away from the long-nosed sea creatures and she promptly started sketching the birds instead. “I’ve never seen a bird walk like that,” she commented, as the first of the creatures walked away clumsily over the rocks, using the knuckles of its papery wings for balance, making a cawking sound like a disgruntled parrot.

“There’s some weird wildlife around today,” commented Darrell, helping herself to another plate of sandwiches.

The words had hardly left her mouth when an enormous shape reared up out of the water and came crashing down far too close to the small boat for its occupants’ comfort, sending a large wave of water slopping over the side, to be greeted by loud screams. Claudia watched in horror as a gigantic, black and white beast surged through the water in pursuit of the dolphin-like creatures. The school promptly scattered in fear, ducking and diving out of the way of their monstrous pursuer. As far as Claudia could tell, the intruder was at least ten metres long, bigger than a killer whale, bigger even than the basking sharks that she’d sometimes seen off the coast here.

The creature dived beneath the waves, its powerful tail flicking in the air before it disappeared from sight. The motor on the small boat coughed twice and then died.

“Oh shit,” Alicia said with feeling.

A moment later, the giant shape broke through the waves again, this time with the fat body of one of the large-eyed, narrow-nosed creatures held firmly in the largest set of jaws that Claudia had ever seen in her life. The smaller beast struggled futilely before the monstrous predator dived again, sending another wave of water into the boat, rocking it dangerously.

This time, the people on the boat weren’t the only ones who screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

“That boat’s going to end up on the rocks!”

Claudia tore her gaze away from the sight of panicked dolphins – no, they were ichthyosaurs she was certain of it now. She’d seen a picture of them once on Connor’s laptop when they’d been called out to a suspected anomaly in a marina in Dorset and Connor had been running through some possible candidates for what had ended up caught in a fisherman’s net.

Sally was right. The occupants of the boat were all screaming now and seemed to have given up trying to restart the outboard motor. The boat was rocking dangerously in the water.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” demanded a fresh voice from behind them on the shore.

“Amanda!” Bill exclaimed, recognising the tall woman with the short hair and tanned skin, wearing shorts and a teeshirt, who had just appeared by the pool. From what Alicia had said earlier Amanda was now the games mistress at Malory Towers. “Have you got the key to the boathouse?”

Amanda Chartelow nodded and, without wasting words, she hurried off with Bill to the wooden shack, leaving the rest of the women still watching the unfolding scene with horrific fascination. Claudia checked her phone again, conscious of the fact that she was trying to will a signal into existence. She didn’t succeed. Instead, she called up the number for the ARC and grabbed Sally Hope by the arm, thrusting the phone into her hand. “Sally, get somewhere you can use a phone. Ring this number. Tell them you’re calling for me and that they need to get a rapid response team here asap. Tell them we need helicopters and boats. If they ask what we’ve got, say they look like dolphins, whales and small pterosaurs.”

“Pterosaurs?” Sally’s shrewd brown eyes were as questioning as her voice.

“Pterosaurs,” said Claudia firmly. They flew and they had leathery wings. Pterosaur was as good a guess as any. “Now go!”

To give the woman her due, Sally simply nodded, pulled on her sandals and started running up the track. Alicia was right; Sally Hope was nothing if not dependable.

Claudia slipped her feet into her own sandals and took off after Amanda and Bill, with Darrell and Alicia at her heels. The other two women had opened the wooden shack and were dragging a small rowing boat out and hauling it down the slipway. There was a second boat in there as well, with an outboard engine.

Amanda gestured to it. “The handyman thought some people might want a turn around the bay. There’s fuel in there but it’s a bit of sod to start.”

“Nothing changes around here,” said Darrell with a grin. “It was a sod to start back in our day as well. Claudia, did you really say pterosaur?”

Discretion waged a brief war with necessity and lost. Claudia didn’t know how long it would take to get a team here from the ARC, but she did know it wasn’t going to be quick enough to help the people out in the bay. These women were her school friends and she was just going to have to trust them.

“I did, and I think the dolphin-things are ichthyosaurs. Don’t ask me how they got here, Darrell, but if anyone sees a big, sparkly thing like a broken mirror, whatever you do, don’t go through it.”

Darrell’s eyes went even wider, but no one asked any more questions, they just concentrated on dragging the boats down to the shore. While Darrell was pulling the handle on the starter motor, trying to jerk the reluctant engine into life, Claudia dashed back to the boathouse to find something – anything – to use as a weapon. She found two sets of broken oars and a large crowbar. She grabbed all of them, and even picked up what looked like an old lacrosse stick for good measure. Goodness knows what it was doing in the boathouse, but anything was possible when it came to storage cupboards in a girls’ school. She threw one of the oars and the lacrosse stick into the other boat, and kept the second oar and the crowbar for herself.

“Jump in!” Alicia called, as the engine finally stuttered into life. “So, you work in the Home Office, do you?” she said to Claudia, as Darrell deftly steered the boat out into the bay. “And I suppose you know about prehistoric creatures from going out with an evolutionary zoologist?”

“Something like that,” Claudia admitted.

A sudden shriek split the air. The enormous sea monster had reappeared again and, this time, only the ichthyosaur’s tail was sticking out of its jaws. It swam towards the small boat bobbing uncertainly on the waves. One of the occupants, a man, took one look at the creature and promptly dived overboard.

“Silly bugger!” snapped Amanda from the other boat. “Claudia, see if you can pick him up, he doesn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of getting ashore any other way, and I ought to know,” she added, ruefully, looking down at the scars on her thigh. “Stay in the boat!” Amanda bellowed to the man’s companions, as Darrell swung the bow of their boat around and gunned the engine, sending their small craft shooting towards the head bobbing in the water.

A panicked ichthyosaur broke the surface of the waves just next to their boat and for a moment Claudia found herself staring into the huge, round eyes of something that had last swum in these seas millions of years ago. Then it dived down again and was gone, its fin scraping against the boat’s hull.

“You know those big, sparkly things you were talking about?” Alicia said, in a conversational tone.

Claudia whipped her head around and looked where her friend was pointing. Over by the tall cliffs to the north, shielded by a spur of rock from anyone down by the pool, an anomaly sparkled, half in and half out of the water. The sunlight had masked its brilliance from the shore, but Claudia knew that was the light she’d seen shining on the water in the middle of the night. It had been open for hours now, and Connor’s Anomaly Detection Device hadn’t picked it up because this section of coast was a mobile phone dead zone.

Steered skilfully by Darrell Rivers, the small boat made its way towards the man struggling in the water. The rip-tide was already drawing him inexorably towards the cruel shoreline, and it was doing the same to the almost-foundered boat containing three people who had now given up all pretence of calm and were simply screaming at the top of their lungs.

The black and white monstrosity appeared again, further out to sea and, for a moment, Claudia hoped it had found more ichthyosaurs to pursue, but her hopes were dashed almost immediately as it turned, executed a perfect barrel roll with one massive, paddle-like flipper waving in the air, and dipped its head down, heading straight for the boat.

“Hang on!” yelled Bill, in a voice that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a parade ground.

Her confident tone managed to cut through the panic and two women and a man grabbed hold of the sides of the boat. For a horrible moment, Claudia thought the small craft was going to capsize as the creature surged out of the water with the boat balanced precariously on its back, before it belly-flopped back down, throwing the boat clear. It rocked wildly on the waves but miraculously stayed afloat, its white-faced occupants too afraid even to scream now.

“Start bailing!” Bill ordered, noticing how low in the water the boat was riding.

Claudia didn’t have time to see whether anyone was obeying her or not. Darrell had managed to coax a surprising turn of speed out of their boat and had brought it alongside the terrified swimmer. “Get him in and be quick!” she urged. “We’re nearly on the rocks!”

Alicia leaned over the side and held her arms down to the man. He grabbed for her hand and missed. Alicia swore luridly, and Claudia remembered that she had three brothers. Her language had been an eye-opener at school, but Claudia had spent a couple of years alongside Special Forces’ finest since then. Alicia stretched out again, and Claudia held her hard around the waist. Alicia grunted her thanks, then snapped, “Come on, you idiot, we haven’t got all day!”

The man flailed wildly with one hand and Alicia managed to get hold of his wrist. Her strong fingers held onto him and pulled him towards the boat. He looked no more than about 20, with dark, overly long hair plastered to his forehead, and wide, terrified eyes. Alicia hauled him up as high as she could, then Claudia grabbed hold of him under the armpits and heaved as well. The boat rocked wildly, Alicia cursed again, and then the young man slithered over the side to land in the water-soaked bottom, coughing up seawater.

“Get us back to shore!” Claudia told Darrell. “We can come back for the others, but he’s not going to be any help.”

Red blood was running down the man’s leg from a gash below his knee, Claudia couldn’t tell whether it had been caused by one of the creatures or a brush with the underwater rocks and right now it didn’t matter. They needed to get rid of their passenger before they could be any more help to Amanda and Bill.

Darrell swung the boat around and opened the throttle again. They had another close brush with an ichthyosaur on their way back to the jetty, but Claudia managed to slap the oar down onto the surface of the water and send it veering off in a different direction.

Several girls were waiting on the slipway as Darrell manoeuvred the boat into shore. Hands reached out and steadied them, and the groaning man was hauled out of the boat under Mary-Lou’s direction. As soon as he was safe in her capable hands, Claudia used her broken oar to push them off the slipway again and back out to sea.

Bill and Amanda had brought their rowing boat alongside the other craft and Bill had managed to jump onto it and was doing her best to restart the engine. With an extra passenger, the boat was riding dangerously low in the water now, in spite of strenuous efforts to rid it of excess seawater by bailing.

“One of you, get in with me!” ordered Amanda.

Claudia watched as three people stared at Amanda like scared rabbits. Bill spared a moment to nudge one of the women in the ribs. “Do as she says! That thing might be back at any minute and another wave is going to swamp us. Move!”

Bill’s elbow galvanised the woman into action and she scrambled to the gunwale, swinging one leg over the side. Amanda did her best to hold the rowing boat steady as the woman dropped down into it. As soon as she was on board, Amanda started rowing strongly for shore. The tide plucked at the boat, and Claudia could see the muscles in the other woman’s neck cording with the strain, but the games mistress slowly started to make headway against the current, encouraged by yells from the watchers on the shore.

Their own boat was closing fast now on its target and Claudia was beginning to hope that they stood a chance of pulling the rescue off. The engine of the other boat coughed once, and she could hear Bill urging it into life. A second later a sleek shape flew out of the water, long-toothed snout open in what looked like a soundless scream, as the ichthyosaur leaped up and over the boat.

The outboard engine stuttered into life sending the boat forward across the waves. Scant moments later, a huge flipper broke the surface of the sea and its gigantic owner executed another perfect roll just where Bill’s boat had been. The wallowing craft wouldn’t have survived that encounter, even with Bill at the helm.

Claudia sucked in a breath, her heart racing in her chest. She was pinning her hopes on the fact that the enormous whale-like creature was too large to have much of a turning circle. Its pointed tail broke the surface several of its own body lengths closer to shore then disappeared.

From the other boat, Bill called out, “This bloody thing is wallowing like a pig in shit! I need to shed a passenger or we’re not going to make it in past those waves!”

The waves were breaking more strongly towards the shore, even though the sea was relatively calm further out, where they were. Even with one of the women gone, Bill’s boat was still riding too low for comfort, and the engine was starting to splutter again. Darrell immediately set a course for the other boat.

Claudia glanced back over her shoulder, reassured to see that Amanda was making headway against the current and had reached the relative calm of the underwater channel that led to the boathouse. She was rowing for all she was worth, strong arms powering the small craft on, accompanied by cheers from the shore. A smile started to form on her face and Claudia switched her attention back to their own progress.

The smile died on her face. A set of teeth straight out of a bad horror film fastened on the side of the boat, splintering it like matchwood. Without even stopping to think, Claudia grabbed the crowbar from the bottom of the boat and brought it down on the massive snout. It probably had as much effect as a flea biting an elephant, but it was better than doing nothing. She struck out again and at her side, Alicia started whacking the creature with the lacrosse stick, while Darrell fought to hold the helm steady. The massive, serrated teeth bit down hard and water started pouring in to the boat.

They were losing the battle, and all three women knew it.


	4. Chapter 4

Claudia gasped as she was plunged into the sea by the rapidly sinking boat. While the shallower water in the swimming pool had been warmed by the sun, this felt freezing cold, in spite of the heat of the day. Salt water swamped her nose and mouth and she coughed, treading water, and stared around in the hope of seeing her companions.

Two dark heads bobbed nearby. They’d all survived the initial encounter, which was something to be thankful for, but Claudia knew she stood no chance of swimming against the riptide. They’d all been warned about the current in their schooldays, and Amanda’s foolhardy decision to swim away from the safety of the pool had resulted in a serious injury to her leg when she’d been flung against the rocks. Claudia had been a reasonable swimmer in her teens, and still ventured into the water when she could, but the last couple of years had allowed little time for regular recreational exercise.

She kicked out as strongly as she could, trying to stay close to Alicia and Darrell. There was nothing Bill or Amanda could do to help them until they’d got the people they were helping to the safety of the shore. Claudia felt something bump against her leg underwater and she bit back a scream. A couple of metres away, an ichthyosaur surfaced briefly, a fish held in its jaws, then dived back beneath the waves. Claudia remembered that at certain times of the tide, schools of dolphins would gather in the bay, following the fish being drawn along by the sweeping cross-currents. She’d seen a similar thing once, on holiday in Scotland, standing on the windswept shore of Chanonry Point on the Moray Firth, and it had reminded her of this bay and its inhabitants. She wondered how many fish from this era were being swept back into the past through the anomaly, and whether they had any chance of ending up causing confusion in the fossil record.

Claudia spat out a mouthful of salt water and shook her head, trying to clear her ears of water and her head of stray thoughts. Alicia was shouting something, but she couldn’t catch what the other woman was saying. Her ears were buzzing and hair was plastered to her face. She was beyond the surf line, but the sea was still rolling around her, truncating her horizon and carrying her inexorably towards the danger zone of the rocks. A huge flipper broke the surface of the water and pieces of shattered wood bobbed around her. Their attacker appeared to have released its hold on the wreckage and was gliding back for a second look. She allowed herself a moment of hope that they might be too small and uninteresting as prey, but somehow she doubted it.

The buzzing noise intensified and Claudia realised it wasn’t inside her own head. What she was hearing was the engine note of a speedboat and it was getting closer by the minute. Abruptly the sound changed as the boat slowed down. A lifebelt tethered to a rope landed in the water only a couple of feet from Claudia. She grabbed it and was promptly pulled towards the boat. Strong hands reached down and hauled her aboard.

“Do the same for the others, there’s a good girl.” Claudia recognised the hearty voice immediately. Miss Peters, the Fourth Form mistress, Bill and Clarissa’s great friend. “I’ll bring the boat round to them, but if that big bugger appears, we’re going to need to be ready to make a quick getaway.”

Claudia readied the life belt and as soon as they were close enough, she cast it as close to Alicia and Darrell as she could. They were still a way off the rocks, but time was clearly of the essence. Alicia wrapped one arm around the red and white ring and held her hand out to Darrell. With a powerful overarm stroke, Darrell managed to get close enough to grab hold as well, and Claudia hauled both of them towards the boat.

“Hang on!” called Miss Peters, pushing the throttle forward. “We’ve got company!”

Claudia quickly flipped a double loop of rope around a gleaming brass knob on the boat’s rail, which took the strain off her shoulders. Alicia and Darrell clung onto the lifebelt and allowed themselves to be dragged behind the boat in its wake. Miss Peters turned the steering wheel and headed out to sea. To one side of the speedboat, Claudia saw the enormous whale-creature powering through the water, but for the moment at least it didn’t appear to be pursuing them. Miss Peters dropped their speed again and Claudia helped the other two women scramble into the boat.

“Good timing!” Alicia declared, still grinning, in spite of their impromptu ducking.

“I always did enjoy making an entrance,” Miss Peters said. “But I wasn’t expecting it to be quite that dramatic.”

“We need to distract it,” Claudia said urgently. “It’s after Bill’s boat.”

Without stopping to ask any questions, Miss Peters simply hauled on the wheel again, spun the small craft around and opened the throttle. The speedboat danced over the wave tops, leaving churning foam in its wake. The three women in the back clung onto the boat’s rail as their former teacher proceeded to take them on a white-knuckled ride that thrill-seekers would have paid a fortune for. The boat was fast and manoeuvrable, and Miss Peters was clearly highly skilled behind the wheel, but even so, Claudia had her heart in her mouth as they took a sharp turn immediately in front of the creature’s nose. As a distraction, it was certainly effective. The prehistoric monster turned as well, sending a heavy bow-wave towards Bill’s boat and drawing another scream from one of her passengers.

“I would have slapped that one by now,” remarked Alicia.

A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up in Claudia’s throat. Alicia could always be relied on to boil a situation down to the bare essentials. Her friend’s short hair was being whipped around with the motion of the boat but, to her amazement, Claudia’s own hair remained fully secured. Miss Potts would have been proud of her. Alicia’s eyes were bright and unafraid as she scanned the water for their pursuer.

“Go right!” Darrell yelled.

The boat swung in that direction. The creature followed them. Claudia clung on to the stern and watched as Bill piloted her own craft, heavily laden with panicking passengers, towards the shore. The engine was struggling and they were still too low in the water for comfort, but it looked like she’d cleared the line of the surf safely. Amanda Chartelow had run her rowing boat aground on the slipway and her passenger had already been whisked out by waiting hands. If Bill made it in safely, they would only have themselves to worry about.

A huge tail broke the surface of the water, reminding Claudia rather forcibly that they did actually have more problems on their hands than just their own personal safety. They also had a ten-metre long sea creature, with a mouth studded with massive conical teeth that Claudia had been far too close to for comfort, on their hands. The terrified tourists were the least of her worries – Claudia was already concocting a story of an escaped killer whale from a private aquarium. What she didn’t want was this beast loose in a shipping lane, or worst still, washed up on a beach somewhere.

Miss Peters took the boat in a wide circle, staying ahead of their pursuer, but still managing to keep its interest. The ichthyosaurs were still swimming in the bay, following the fish, moving closer to cliffs on the north side and to the anomaly. Claudia saw one of them jump into the air and dive back down, disappearing into the fragments of light. A moment later, a second one followed it.

“That’s the idea,” Claudia breathed. “Go on home, it’s nicer there.” She watched as a third ichthyosaur followed its companions. “Miss Peters, can you see that patch of light over there by the cliffs?”

The teacher nodded, still keeping a wary eye out for the massive mottled shape in the water.

“Can you drive the boat into it?”

“Not without hitting the cliff,” Miss Peters said.

“I thought you told us not to go through the light thing?” said Darrell, a moment before she yelled, “It’s on our left!”

Miss Peters coaxed another burst of speed from the engine, veering away from open jaws that snapped harmlessly, but impressively, on empty air. The creature sank back below the waters, but Claudia didn’t think for one moment that it had given up the pursuit. It was persistent, and she hoped they could use that to their advantage.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Claudia said grimly. “We need to get that thing back where it belongs before it creates any more chaos.”

“Where does it belong?” Alicia asked, mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Somewhere in the Jurassic, at a guess,” said Claudia.

“And do you really work for the Home Office?”

The boat slewed wildly and for a moment Claudia was more concerned with hanging onto the rail of the boat. But once the immediate danger of being flung back into the sea had passed she met her friend’s frank stare and nodded. “Yes, I really do work for the Home Office.”

“So did my mother, but she never said anything about dinosaurs.”

“We’re a rather specialised department.”

“Were you serious about driving the boat into that light show?” Miss Peters asked calmly. “You do realise that the cliffs are right behind it.”

“Trust me, we won’t hit the cliffs. Just make sure our friend is still on our tail.”

The boat zig-zagged wildly from side to side, and once again a pair of monstrous jaws closed on empty air.

“I don’t think that’s going to be too much of a problem,” commented Miss Peters dryly. “All right, ladies, hang on …”

To give the Fourth Form teacher her due, the boat’s pace never slackened in its race towards the sparkling anomaly. Claudia estimated that about a third of it hung above the surface, with the remainder beneath the waves. They were closing on it at something like 40 miles an hour – Claudia had no idea of nautical speeds, and this didn’t seem like the time or the place to start asking technical questions. If Claudia was wrong, or if the anomaly chose this moment to close, she doubted they’d even know about it.

Jagged cliffs loomed above then, 300 feet high, dark and forbidding, with white-crested waves crashing interminably against them. Sea birds wheeled around the ledges, their harsh cries drowned out by the noise of the boat’s engine. Miss Peters set the prow of the boat resolutely at the anomaly and, without hesitation, piloted them straight through the light.

Instinctively, Claudia closed her eyes, hoping that she was right and that the Jurassic coastline would be radically different from their current surroundings. She heard a sharp intake of breath next to her and opened her eyes, more than half-expecting to see rock hurtling towards her at high speed, but instead she was looking out over a wide expanse of blue sea, with no landmass in sight in any direction.

Miss Peters turned around, a look of complete incredulity on her face, as though she expected the cliffs to have suddenly appeared behind them instead. Next to her, Alicia and Darrell threw each other a high-five, then Alicia thumped Claudia hard on the back, grinning from ear to ear.

“We made it!” she yelled, sounding for all the world like an over-excited third former.

“Don’t count your chickens,” Claudia muttered. “Where’s Moby?”

“Behind us!” cried Darrell. “What now?”

“Lead him as far away from the anomaly as we can.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best one Claudia could come up with.

“The … what?”” Miss Peters queried.

“The big shiny rip in time,” Claudia clarified.

Miss Peters gunned the throttle and the boat surged forward, away from the anomaly and out over a wide expanse of water that had never before seen either a boat or a human being. As Claudia looked back she saw another two ichthyosaurs leap through the shards of time, disappearing under the gently rolling waves. The tide in their world had been seeping the fish towards the cliffs and towards the anomaly, and the ichthyosaurs had been following the fish. With enormous marine predator no longer menacing them, Claudia hoped that the attraction the anomalies always seemed to exert over the creatures they tempted through time would act in their favour now and lure the school of graceful reptiles back to where they should be.

“How far is far enough?” Miss Peters asked, completely unfazed by the expanse of sea on all sides.

“Just don’t lose sight of the anomaly! And if it starts to fade, get us straight back. We can’t afford to risk getting trapped here. That would be …” Claudia groped for the right word and finally settled for, “… inconvenient.”

“We’re really in the past?” marvelled Darrell.

“Well it sure as hell isn’t Kansas,” Alicia grinned. “Do you get to do this sort of thing often, Claudia?”

Claudia shook her head, still staring around her in wonder. The sky seemed bigger and bluer, unmarked by condensation trails from aircraft. The sea sparkled with sunlight and the air smelled of nothing more than a clean salt tang. This was a world untouched by man, the bringer of pollution. Over on their left, she saw a dark smudge on the horizon – presumably the landmass the small pterosaurs had come from. She didn’t know how they’d go about getting them back through the anomaly, but for the moment, Moby Dick was a more pressing concern.

Abruptly, Miss Peters spun the wheel, and the small speedboat slewed wildly to starboard. Ahead of them, a long graceful neck rose out of the water, like an overgrown swan. A small head stared down at them from a height of several metres.

“Bloody hell, Nessie’s come to join the party,” remarked Alicia, in the voice of someone who had gone beyond the point of being surprised by anything.

Behind them, a huge fin broke the surface of the water and the plesiosaur – Claudia knew that name, at least – snapped its neck back in alarm, before disappearing beneath the waves. It looked very much like something else had taken on the role of providing a distraction.

“Time to go home!” she called.

The boat swept in a wide arc and Miss Peters set a course straight back towards the anomaly. Claudia just had time to hope that they’d emerge in the opposite direction from the one they’d entered the past before the shards of time swallowed them again and they shot back into a world that seemed somehow smaller and duller than the one they’d just left.


	5. Chapter 5

A deft poke from a lacrosse stick dislodged the ungainly pterosaur from its perch on the rock and Darrell flung a net over the squawking creature. As far as they could tell this was the last one and, unlike its fellows, it didn’t seem to have been at all partial to tuna sandwiches.

The low drone of a helicopter sounded above the cheers from the women on the shore as Miss Peters and Darrell hauled their protesting captive down to the speedboat bobbing against the slipway.

“Claudia, I think your colleagues have arrived,” called Sally Hope, who’d been acting as liaison with the ARC.

The helicopter landed on the cliff top and disgorged the usual mix of scientists and the military. Captain Ryan and a group of his men came down the cliff path at a jog, followed closely by Stephen, with Cutter, Abby and Connor behind them. Lester brought up the rear, strolling casually at a far more sedate pace.

“Ooh, pretty men!” said Alicia, appreciatively. “Who’s Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome?”

“Dr Stephen Hart,” Claudia replied, amused by the frankly salacious look on her friend’s face. “He’s taken.”

Alicia sighed. “The pretty ones always are. Who by? Not that gorgeous little pixie, surely? He’d have to stand her on a chair to kiss her.”

“The hunky blond with the big gun,” Claudia laughed, watching as Alicia’s eyebrows met her hairline at speed.

“So which one’s yours?” her friend demanded.

Before Claudia had chance to reply, a very Scottish voice demanded, “Claudia Brown, what the hell have you been playing at? Connor says you’ve been through the bloody anomaly?”

“Needs must, Nick,” said Claudia smoothly. “We did have a liopleurodon on our hands. I don’t think our holding tanks would have quite big enough for him, and you know how much James hates extra expense.”

Before Nick had time to answer, Connor grinned widely. “I wish I’d seen it!” He’d supplied the name of the creature to Sally during their initial conversation. He’d even sent a picture of one to her phone, to confirm the identification. “Was it really as big as Sally said? And black and white? You’re sure it was black and white?”

“It was bloody huge. And yes, Connor, it was black and white, but mottled, not stripy. You might even find that a few people have got photos of it.”

“Cool,” Connor enthused.

Lester’s reaction was somewhat more restrained. “Has it definitely gone?”

“As far as we can tell, yes. Abby, we’ve got a few pterosaurs in the boat and we need to get them back through the anomaly. Can you give us hand?”

Nick Cutter’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re not seriously intending to go back through, woman?”

“Well, I don’t intend to start keeping prehistoric puffins as pets, Nick, so yes, I am seriously intending going back through, but only as far as we need to go to get the creatures back into the air.”

“Dimorphodons,” supplied Connor, helpfully, staring down at the beast glaring balefully up at him from the confines of a hockey net.

“Let Captain Ryan’s men deal with it, Claudia.” Nick’s voice took on a somewhat beseeching tone.

“Most certainly not,” said Claudia briskly. Her eyes swept across the assembled soldiers. Lyle was grinning widely, Ditzy was doing an equally bad job of hiding his amusement, Kermit was staring around the assembled swim-suited women like a kid in a sweetshop and the others were nearly as bad. The only female soldier in the black-clad group was a welcome sight. “Tanya, just the person I need. Give Abby a hand with the net, will you?”

Tanya Lacey flashed Claudia a wide smile and, after receiving a quick nod from a studiously impassive Captain Ryan, did as Claudia had asked. Ignoring Nick’s protestations, Claudia jumped back into the boat, accompanied by both Darrell and Alicia. With Miss Peters at the controls again, and Abby and Lacey keeping a close eye on the wicked beaks of their captives, they headed at full throttle back to the anomaly. They’d already repatriated three of the birds and the four they were carrying now looked like the last of the ones that had come through. Several of the girls had been combing the cliffs with binoculars, but it looked like the gulls had succeeded in defending their territory from the intruders and the dimorphodons had headed for easier pickings on the shore.

Lacrosse sticks and goal nets had been pressed into service and the old girls of Malory Towers had started to hunt down the creatures, while Mary-Lou and the school’s matron had treated the injured man’s leg in the sick bay, plying his companions with hot, sweet tea at the same time. The killer whale story seemed to be working so far, for which Claudia was thankful. According to the information Connor had relayed to Sally Hope, there had been quite a few reports in the press of killer whale sightings off the Cornish coast, so she hadn’t even had to play the aquarium escapee card. The press would no doubt descend on the area in the hope of some Jaws-style reporting, but so far the coastguards were doing a good job of keeping any sightseers in boats away from the area.

“Cutter didn’t look too pleased to be left out,” commented Abby, as she started to free one of the small pterosaurs from the netting as they approached the dancing light of the anomaly.

“This outing is strictly girls only,” Claudia laughed.

“So that’s your evolutionary zoologist, is it?” Alicia said.

“He’s not my anything,” said Claudia tartly, as they were swallowed up by the anomaly, which conveniently covered her blush. Ever since her first impetuous kiss, she and Nick Cutter had succeeded in doing nothing more than dance around each other like a couple of schoolkids on a first date. She was seriously beginning to wonder if she’d have to employ similar tactics to break through his natural reserve again.

Fortunately for her self-composure, one of the dimorphodons chose that moment to make an early break for freedom and the next few minutes were taken up with their attempts to release the ugly little sods without losing a finger in the process.

“Last one!” said Abby, with a pleased grin as one of the creatures perched for a moment on the rail of the boat before launching itself into the air and skimming low over the water in the hunt for something other than tuna sandwiches to eat.

“Miss Brown, ma’am,” Tanya Lacey said. “I think the anomaly is starting to weaken.”

“Time to go home, ladies,” called Claudia. “As quick as you can, please, Miss Peters!”

They shot through the anomaly at speed, all of them taking one last, lingering look at the unspoiled waters of the Jurassic ocean. They were almost back to the slipway when the anomaly flashed once in the early afternoon sunlight and was gone.

“That was bloody amazing!” breathed Alicia reverently. “And I don’t suppose we’re ever going to be able to tell anyone about it, are we?”

Claudia shook her head. “My boss is no doubt already brandishing copies of the Official Secrets Act.”

As it turned out, Sir James Lester was reclining in a deckchair, a glass of Pimms in hand, chatting to Miss Grayling, while Stephen Hart and the soldiers were all enjoying cold beers that had appeared from somewhere along with several more trays of sandwiches. Connor was poring excitedly over Belinda’s sketch pad, admiring the vivid pencil drawings of the leaping ichthyosaurs and the ungainly dimorphodons, captured by the artist as they’d waddled over the rocks on the shore.

Nick was waiting on the slipway for her and as he extended her hand to help her out of the boat, Claudia was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was still wearing a rather skimpy swimsuit that had seemed entirely adequate for lounging by the pool with her old schoolfriends, but now seemed somewhat less than decent in the company of her work colleagues.

One of his rare smiles lit Nick’s normally serious face as she took his arm, and Claudia resolutely ignored the sly grin on Alicia’s face. As they made their way back to the pool, Nick regaled her with questions about the liopleurodon and what they’d seen on the other side of the anomaly.

The atmosphere around the pool was relaxed, and Claudia sank thankfully into a deckchair and accepted a large drink.

“A job well done, my dear,” murmured Lester. “Although I will admit to a moment of concern when your friend Sally told Connor that your boat had just been sunk by a refugee from Shark Attack 3. At least that was young Mr Temple’s take on the conversation.”

Claudia raised her eyebrows in surprise. She’d seen the film, courtesy of several bottles of wine and a friend with a thing for John Barrowman, but she couldn’t imagine Lester watching something like that.

“Lyle has lamentable taste,” Lester supplied, by way of explanation. “And it was his turn to choose.”

“He refused to go wreck diving with me the following weekend,” drawled Lyle. “It took me weeks to get him back in the water.”

“Some of us don’t have your liking for the cold, Jon. Now, are you going to do something useful or simply sit around drinking beer?”

“I was hoping for a turn around the bay in a speedboat,” Lyle said, looking hopefully at Miss Peters.

For the rest of the afternoon, the soldiers took turns at being ferried around the bay in the boat and running recon flights in the helicopter, while Claudia relaxed by the pool. It seemed Lester and Miss Grayling had reached an understanding on the subject of what happened at Malory Towers staying at Malory Towers without the need for national security to be invoked, and Connor had flushed pink with pleasure on being presented with Belinda’s sketches.

By early evening, when nothing more threatening than a basking shark had been encountered, the search was called off, and Lester and the others returned to the ARC, leaving Claudia to enjoy the remainder of the weekend.

It was well after midnight when she finally retired to the small room high in North Tower but, unlike the previous night, the only thing sparkling on the water was very definitely the moon.

Claudia leaned on the windowsill, replaying the day’s events in her mind, experiencing again the thrill of actually seeing the past for herself.

“I thought you said your job was boring?” said an amused voice, close enough to send warm breath across Claudia’s bare shoulder.

“I may have told a small white lie,” Claudia admitted, doing her best to ignore the flutter of anticipation in her stomach.

“Claudia Brown – Dinosaur Hunter.” Alicia slipped her arms around Claudia’s waist and joined her in staring out of the window. “Let me know if you ever need a lawyer on the team. It beats what I do for a living any day.”

Claudia smiled and leaned back against her friend, enjoying the warmth of the other woman’s body. In spite of the heat of the day, nights at school had always been chilly and this was no exception.

Alicia drew back and, with gentle but insistent hands, turned Claudia around to face her. The room was in darkness, illuminated only by the moonlight. Alicia’s eyes sparkled with mischief as she leaned forward and captured Claudia’s lips in a soft kiss.

“I’ve wanted to do that since we were in Miss Peters’ class,” Alicia said, the casual teasing gone for once. I fancied you something rotten when we were 14.”

“What happens at school stays in school?” said Claudia, running her hands up Alicia’s arms to her shoulders and tilting her friend’s head back so she could kiss the long line of her throat.

“Absolutely,” murmured Alicia. “And you can tell that bloody Scotsman of yours that if he doesn’t get his act together, he’ll have competition on his hands.”

With the memory of another kiss in mind, Claudia finally allowed her teenage hormones out to play.

She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that it was time she gave into her impulses again where a certain Scotsman was concerned as well.


End file.
